B742 / B744, Chicago O'Hare IL USA, 1999

B742 / B744, Chicago O'Hare IL USA, 1999

Summary

On 1 April 1999, an Air China Boeing 747-200F which had just landed on and cleared runway 14R at Chicago O Hare failed to follow its correctly read back taxi-in clearance and crossed the landing runway at night ahead of a Boeing 747 taking off. The latter rotated abruptly and banked away from the taxiing 747, missing it by an estimated 75 feet. It was found that the Air China aircraft had realised it was going the wrong way but had slowed rather than stopped taxiing with the nose of the aircraft past the runway centreline as it was overflown.

Description

On 1 April 1999, a Boeing 747-200F being operated by Air China on a scheduled cargo flight into Chicago cleared runway 14R after a night landing but, in normal ground visibility, then re-entered the same runway as a Boeing 747-400 being operated by Korean Airlines on a scheduled passenger flight from Chicago to Seoul was taking off on the same runway. The departing aircraft rotated early and immediately deviated from the runway centreline so as to avoid hitting the other aircraft.

Investigation

Although the NTSB investigated this complex and serious incident, for reasons that have not been established, no formal official report of the Investigation was ever published. However, all the pertinent factual information was officially released during a subsequent overall review by the Board of runway incursions in which this event was one of four examples of serious runway incursions which occurred in 1999 and were detailed at a Public Hearing dedicated to the subject on 13 June 2000.

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